SEO Ranking For 2018

Archive for Seo

CHAPTER 1: RankBrain & User Experience Signals

Last year Google announced that RankBrain was their third most important ranking factor:

“In the few months it has been deployed, RankBrain has become the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query.”

And as Google refines its algorithm, RankBrain is going to become even MORE important in 2018.

The question is:

What is RankBrain, exactly? And how can you optimize for it?

Google RankBrain: a Dead-Simple Explanation

RankBrain is a machine learning system that helps Google sort their search results.

That might sound complicated, but it isn’t.

RankBrain simply measures how users interact with the search results…

…and ranks them accordingly.

For example, let’s say you search for “cold brew coffee” on Google.

The #4 result looks especially enticing. So you quickly click on it.

And when you get there…wow! It’s the best darn article about coffee you’ve ever read. So you devour every word.

RankBrain is going to take note…and likely give that #4 result a rankings boost.

On the other hand, let’s say that you do the same search. But this time, you click on the #1 result without even looking.

But the content is TERRIBLE. So you bounce off the page after a few seconds. And you click on the #4 result to find something about coffee that’s actually worth reading.

RankBrain will also notice this. And if enough people quickly bounce from that result, Google will boot it from the #1 spot.

As you can see, RankBrain focuses on two things:

1. How long someone spends on your page (Dwell Time)2. The percentage of people that click on your result (Click Through Rate)

Let’s break each of these down.

RankBrain and Dwell Time

Dwell Time=how long a Google searcher spends on your page.

As it turns out, RankBrain pays A LOT of attention to Dwell Time.

In fact, the head of Google Brain in Canada recently confirmed that Google uses Dwell Time as a ranking signal. He stated that RankBrain measures when:

“someone clicks on a page and stays on that page when they go back”

And a recent industry study by SearchMetrics supports this statement. They found that the average Dwell Time for a top 10 Google result is 3 minutes and 10 seconds.

If you’ve spent any time digging through your Google Analytics, you know that a 3+ minute Dwell Time is legit.

And it’s no coincidence that pages with awesome Dwell Time tend to rank best. In fact, RankBrain is up ranking these pages for that exact reason.

This makes sense if you think about it:

If you spend a long time on a page, you probably like the content on that page.

And if enough people feel the same way, Google will uprank that content to make it easier to find.

If you want to improve your site’s Dwell Time, check out this video:

RankBrain and Organic Click Through Rate (CTR)

Google Engineer Paul Haahr caused a stir in the SEO world when he put up this slide at a conference:

This slide basically says:

“RankBrain sometimes ranks pages higher up than they “should” rank.

And if that page gets an above-average CTR, we use that as a sign that the page should get permanent rankings boost.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, if no one clicks on your result, why would Google keep it on the first page?

And if your site is getting clicked on like there’s no tomorrow, why would Google keep it buried in the #9 spot?

If you want a few simple strategies that you can use to boost CTR, check out this infographic that I recently made with Larry Kim.

(Click Here for Full Image)

Speaking of click-through rate…

CHAPTER 2: Become a CTR Jedi

If you want to master SEO in 2018, you need to become a CTR Jedi.

Yes, because of RankBrain.

But also because of:

And:

And most deadly of all:

In fact, one industry study found that organic CTR is down 37% since 2015.

It’s no secret why: Google is crowding out the organic search results with Answer Boxes, Ads, Carousels, “People also ask” sections, and more.

And to stand out, your result needs to scream “click on me!”…or else it’ll be ignored.

This video will help you boost your CTR using what I call “The Click Magnet Method”:

CHAPTER 3: Comprehensive, In-DepthContent Wins

In the old days, Google would analyze your page to see how many times you used a specific keyword.

In other words, they focused 100% on your page’s content. So the Google spider would visit your page to check if your keyword appeared in your:

Title tag

URL

Image ALT text

Description tag

H1 tag

To be fair, they still look at that stuff. But today’s Google is MUCH smarter than it used to be.

So instead of only measuring content, they now focus on context.

What do I mean?

Remember: Google’s #1 job is to show their user the BEST result. And in most cases, the “best” result isn’t a piece of keyword-stuffed content.

Instead, the best pages cover an entire topic in-depth.

With in-depth content, a Google searcher gets everything they need in one place (one stop shopping).

In fact, my recent ranking factors study found that in-depth content tends to rank best in Google.

How To Write Comprehensive, In-Depth contents

: how can you write the type of in-depth content that Google wants to see?First, publish content that’s at least 2,000 words. That way, you can cover everything a Google searcher needs to know about that topic.In fact, our ranking factors study found that longer content (like ultimate guides and long-form blog posts) outranked short articles in Google:

Keyword Research Services

Keyword research is a core fundamental of all search engine marketing.

Get this wrong and you’re not even in the game.

Search engine function uses them, and your customers are typing in millions of them into search engines every day. Finding those high-volume search terms for your particular niche and finding low competition high converting keywords, which translates into cash paying customers, is what we do.

Using a combination of tools that we have developed over the years, allows us to do a deep analysis of the market and your competition. This allows us to focus on valuable keywords which will give you insight into your customer’s pain and problems. There is no more powerful way to become the expert in your field than answering your customer’s questions with your content.

Website keyword research

When doing the research for the search engine optimization of your website, the keywords found are used to configure the structure of your site; it is important to get the semantic relationships between these words to push your site up the rankings in the search engines.

This, in turn, helps us to construct proper navigation and understand what content is important to present and write without wasted time and effort. It will provide your customers with exactly what they were searching for. All the content on your site should be easily accessed and well configured. Websites that get this right will bring customers back time and time again.

Keyword research for paid advertising

This research is also important to properly optimize a paid marketing campaign (PPC) with the major search engines, such as Google & Bing.

It defines a proper grouping of words that your customers are converting with, and properly target those ads according to the specific words they are typing in. By doing this you get a higher ROI (return on investment), you pay less for your ads with a higher quality score and convert more curious searchers by answering their specific queries.

Local Business Search Engine Optimization

With 97% of all local searches now being done online and 68% resulting in a phone call, local rankings have become just as important as a full-page ad used to be in the Yellow Pages.

We carry out a full analysis of where your business is listed and more importantly where it is not. We analyze your top local competitors and compare their listings to find the most relevant and important citations ( directory listings) for your business.

We carry out a full analysis of all important NAP data (Name, Address, Phone number), business description, photos, reviews, star rating and more.

Is your listing verified? Are you listed in the right categories? How many reviews do you have and what is your star rating? We use these insights to enhance your Google+ Local listing and drive your business up the search rankings.

Detailed On-site SEO Audit

We will identify problems, which may be holding your website back while looking for the most natural and local SEO factors. We report on factors such as visible keywords, company address, Google map links, rCard & hCard markup and the usuals – meta tags, h-tags, flash files, error pages etc…

Optimize Your Google+ Local SEO Profile

We do a complete side-by-side analysis of 5 of your top competitors. We analyze the authority of their domain in their citations. We then go to work on increasing the authority of your local business.

You will receive a complete PDF report of the strength of your business compared to your top competitors. You can then easily see how your local business looks to the search engines. We hunt through Google to identify which directories & sites your business exists on and return a full list of websites with links straight to your Citation on each site.

Full Implementation Of Rich Snippets And Structured Data

If you have ever wondered how some sites have star ratings underneath their listing images and thumbnails beside their listings, you’ve come to the right place. Microdata is coding that is placed within a site which lets search engines know what display it can be implemented for:

Reviews

People

Products

Businesses and organizations

Recipes

Events

Music

Videos

Authorship

Articles

Restaurants

Software applications

TV episodes

How Can Schema Help Your SEO

One of Google’s new algorithms called Hummingbird looks to ascertain the overall meaning of your webpage. By providing rich snippets it allows easier understanding of search engines. Ranking for the proper keywords and subjects are more important than just ranking.

Also, when Google introduced their algorithm Panda, one of its measurements was the click-through rate of a listing. If more people click on your search result, it is a clear indication that people have a higher interest in what you have to say, therefore increasing your rankings.

Other than the right title to entice your prospect to click on your listing, it is making your listing stand out with:

a thumbnail of the video

having an image of the author

a larger listing by providing an event calendar

being able to see a star rating

seeing that it is a product page and product price right from the search results

able to identify local businesses with addresses and phone numbers

displaying multiple pages of your site with a breadcrumb

These have improved all of our client’s click-through rates.

Simply put, they get more traffic.

Rich Snippets has a positive effect on current algorithms and is only getting stronger as searchers get more sophisticated and expect these features.

We currently integrate all necessary coding to implement rich snippets “structured data”. We then fully test the coding to ensure proper functionality.